Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #101908 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780802118639
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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From Publishers Weekly
In Harrison's funny, spirited latest, Cliff, a 60-year-old former Michigan high school teacher, bids adieu to his inherited family farm (lost in a shady real estate deal); his wife, Vivian, of 38 years (who has been cheating on him and orchestrated the deal) and dear departed dog Lola (the truest woman in my life); and sets off on a yearlong, countrywide jag. Armed with his childhood jigsaw puzzle mapping the 50 states, Cliff endearingly tosses out a puzzle piece every time he crosses state lines, reminisces and tries (with as much humor as he can muster) to make the best of his shattered existence. The miles between Minnesota and Montana play host to a melodramatically drawn-out love/hate romantic triumph with Marybelle, a married former student. She stalks Cliff well into a visit with his affluent gay son, Robert, flourishing in San Francisco. As more calamity ensues in Arizona, New Mexico and Montana, the possibility of reconciliation with Vivian looms. With a plot left deliberately thin, Harrison is consistently witty and engaging as he drives home his timeless theme: that change can be beneficial at any point in life. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com At the end of a class reunion that he didn't want to attend, poor Cliff notices that his wife has returned to the party with grass stains on her clothes. She soon deserts him to run off with an old high school flame and, in the bargain, pockets most of the profits from the sale of the Michigan farm where Cliff has raised cattle and tended orchards for the past 25 years. Oh, and his dog just died. With a dim future ahead, the 60-year-old protagonist of Jim Harrison's latest novel hits the open road like a superannuated Jack Kerouac in search of adventure and self-understanding. He's also propelled by his absurd "sacred project" of assigning new names to birds and to the 50 states. In his long-ago past, Cliff was an English major at Michigan State and spent 10 years as a high school teacher. Somewhere in Minnesota, he hooks up with a libidinous former student named Marybelle -- a married woman 17 years his junior -- and the two embark on a graphically described cross-country sex romp. "There's something about Nebraska that has me sexually wired," says the insatiable Marybelle. (As a native Nebraskan, I have to confess I've never had quite that response toward my home state.) By the time they get to Montana, Cliff has grown tired of Marybelle's drama and, more to the point, her constant cellphone chatter. "Forty-five years of sex fantasies come true," he says before dropping her off, "and I'm thinking that I wish I could go fishing." He continues his tour of Western states, developing a crush on a new waitress in every town. Between his minutely detailed meals -- lots of meat, lots of booze -- Cliff muses on reuniting with his wife and wonders if he's wasted his time and his mind by working on the farm. This much is certain: Harrison has saddled Cliff -- English major or not -- with some atrocious prose. He writes with all the grace of a car that has blown its tires and is running on the rims. Some passages are laughably awkward on many levels: "At dinner my ears had reddened watching a pretty Mexican waitress float across the room with her trays of food. There was Mexican music on the jukebox and I felt like I was in a foreign land, Mexico to be exact." In one of the more ludicrous scenes, Cliff meets a 21-year-old waitress who agrees to take off her clothes for $300, if he'll keep a distance of at least 10 feet. "You might be a farmer," she says, "but I bet big money you were an English major in college." Yeah, sure. Somehow, I doubt if Harrison's aimless road trip will have many students rushing over to the English department.
Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Jim Harrison has long held the title of Best American Writer You've Probably Never Heard Of. A poet first (and, by Harrison's own admission, foremost), he turned to fiction almost 40 years ago with the publication of his novel Wolf. Harrison is at his best when he focuses on his characters' essential humanity and the tragicomic events that shape their lives. His raw humor and sharp (and for the most part, good-natured) satire occasionally met with ambivalence from critics, but The English Major is the work of a seasoned, sure-footed storyteller. This novel is vintage Harrison, and for most readers, that's a very good thing indeed.
Copyright 2008 Bookmarks Publishing LLC

Customer Reviews

thoroughly enjoyable--but not as deep as some of his other work
With Jim Harrison, you always know that you'll be reading something that is well off the beaten track, so to speak. He writes for himself, not to please a segment of the population. With most of his work, you feel that you're getting deep within a person's soul. The English Major is a bit more "escapist" than some of his deeper and darker (in the sense of unsettling, not supernatural, although there may be a surreal feel) novels. The story is about a man recently in his 60's whose wife of almost 40 years has booted him out for another man. Cliff leaves his farm in Michigan on an Odyssey (using caps seems appropriate) across many of the western US states. He takes with him an old jigsaw puzzle, and as he leaves each state he "sacrifices" that piece of the puzzle.

Cliff's journey takes him to Wisconsin, Minnestota, and eventually into Montana. On this early part of the trip he is joined by a former student Marybelle, who will be dropped off at her husband's digging site in Montana. Marybelle is a cell-phone addict to an extent that rivals Cliff's ex-wife's appetite for junk food. Cliff wants open spaces, Marybelle wants nearby cell phone towers. Harrison's great strength lies in the depth of his characterizations. You seem to always get a good understanding and appreciation of everyone--evn the waitresses in the small cafes along the way. There are wonderful descriptions of Cliff's mixed reactions to Marybelle--the sex, the incessant cellphone chatter, whether it is better to have companionship or quiet solitary communions with nature (Cliff also enjoys fishing).

Cliff's son lives in San Francisco, and always has more advice for him than Cliff wants, the ex-wife wants to see him as well, and, of course, Marybelle and her cell phone intrudes. Harrison's novels are mostly about change, about introspection, about discovering yourself. You may well find youself thinking about Homer's Odyssey: are there parallels? deliberate parallels? or is this totally irrelevant? It's a strange voyage, full of character and characters, and a very engaging story.

Coming Home Again
This novel concerns the transition of a 60-year-old man from one chapter of life to another using the device of a road trip. Cliff addresses his life, but not always successfully. Harrison is a fine writer, but at times I felt he almost phoned in some of his observations. There is really not much soul searching during this aborted voyage of discovery. Many times the protagonist snapping pictures, usually of cows, and applying quotes from his past as an English teacher. It is not certain why he gave up that profession to become a farmer, and the characters are somewhat 2 dimensional except for his beloved late dog, Lola. His project, that of renaming all the states and their state birds, seems more of a device than a calling. There are some lovely passages hinting at the talent of this fine writer, but this is not one of his better efforts.

A geezer cogitates the myriad mysteries of life
I tried hard to like this book, and I succeeded, at least partly. The title was an instant grabber since I too was an English major, forty years ago. Harrison (who was once, incidentally, like me, a Reed City Boy) has told interviewers that the book's title was spawned by the oft-asked question from his practical-minded and sometimes dim northern Michigan friends and relatives: "Why wouldja major in English when ya already know English?" Point taken, I suppose. The truth is that most English majors were/are people who love books and reading. But then those same people often end up as teachers; and some of them, like me, find out they don't really like teaching, just books. Anyway, ol' Cliff, the book's 60 yr-old protagonist, taught high school English for 10 yrs, then went back to farming, another job he didn't really like all that much, but got kinda used to over a 25 yr period. When his wife of nearly 40 yrs leaves him, his dog dies and he loses his farm, all practically at the same time, he is forced to re-examine his life and try to make a new one. So he goes on the road, fancying himself a kind of codger-Kerouac, perhaps. As is true in almost all of Harrison's books, women fling themselves at him and have their way with his tired ol' body, which begins to very much feel its age after too much vigorous sex. He seems to find more pleasure in frequent naps and food than he does in these adventures in the sack though. In point of fact, his descriptions of his meals, taken in various diners, bars and seedy restaurants, or self-prepared, as he travels west across the country from Michigan to California, and back to Montana, become rather tiresome, as do his frequent digressions on life and sex and just about everything else. The plot, if there indeed is one, is pretty thin. Having said all this however, I have to admit that I often found myself chuckling or even laughing out loud as I empathized with Cliff's revisionist ruminations on growing older and suffering the humiliations and pains of diminishing strenghth and waning sexual energy. His self-deprecating humor as he variously characterizes himself as a geezer, a codger, or an old Studebaker standing in the weeds, is quite contagious and I found myself rooting for the pore ol' fart. So the ending - which isn't exactly a "happily-ever-after" one, but wasn't really too awful either - seemed appropriate. And I'm pretty sure Cliff is correct about his future. He'll "do fine." - Tim Bazzett, author of the Reed City Boy trilogy